Nick Cannon seemed to forget one of his children’s names when he was asked to list all 12.
The 42-year-old television personality appeared on SiriusXM’sThe Howard Stern Show on Monday where he spoke about fatherhood, his plans to get a vasectomy, and whether he’d have children with newly-single Taylor Swift.
When asked by Stern if he knew each of his 12 children’s names, the Wild N’ Out host declared that he could not only name his kids, but he could also list them in order and their birthdays. “I’m gonna test you,” the radio show host replied.
Cannon began: “Moroccan and Monroe, which we call Roc and Roe, Golden Powerful and then Zion, Zillion, Zen…”
“And then from there, Legendary Love. Then there’s Rise,” he continued, until Stern chimed in: “Wrong, wrong! You missed.”
The Masked Singer host explained to Stern that he wasn’t done listing their names, and continued with Powerful Queen, Beautiful Zeppelin, and Halo Marie. However, Stern pointed out that Cannon had accidentally forgotten one of his children.
“You left out Onyx Ice Cole,” Stern told him, to which Cannon confessed, “Ah, no! You know, I did. You threw me off because I was going in order!”
“Poor Onyx,” the radio host joked, as Cannon told him that Stern’s line of questioning will “create problems for me”.
Nick Cannon welcomed his ninth child, daughter Onyx Ice Cole Cannon, with model LaNisha Cole in September 2022. “Introducing ONYX ICE COLE CANNON,” he captioned his Instagram announcing the birth of his ninth child, along with a black and white photo of the parents holding their newborn baby at the hospital. “Once again today I am in Awe of the Devine Feminine! God has given me and @MissLanishaCole the privilege of hosting an Angel here on earth,” he continued. “I vow to protect, provide, guide and love this child to the best of my abilities.”
The rapper has had nine children in the last three years, raising his total number of children to 12 with six different women. Three months after the birth of their daughter Onyx Ice, Lanisha Cole appeared to shade Cannon for posting “fake” photos with his children and their mothers on social media.
“It’s important for me to keep things positive and maintain my peace in the midst of it all,” she captioned a blank Instagram story last December. “It’s not easy but I have to do it for my daughter. She is incredibly blessed and is surrounded by so much love – and it’s not fake IG photo op love – it’s real day in and day out love.”
Brie Tiesi, who shares son Legendary Love with Cannon, seemingly came to the singer’s defense when she replied to a fan’s comment saying they “love that he shows up” for his 12 children. “THIS! Nick always shows up,” she wrote in an Instagram story alongside the fan’s message. “Always present, happy, consistent, loving parent and an even better person.”
“We love u!” she added.
Nick Cannon first became a father when he welcomed twins Moroccan and Monroe with ex-wife Mariah Carey in 2011. Since then, he’s gone on to welcome ten more children: sons Golden Sagon, Rise Messiah, and daughter Powerful Queen with Brittany Bell; twins Zion and Zillion and daughter Beautiful Zeppelin with Abby De La Rosa; son Legendary Love with Bre Tiesi; daughter Halo Marie and his late son Zen with Alyssa Scott; and daughter Onyx Ice with LaNisha Cole.
Despite drawing a blank on one of his 12 children, the TV host recently revealed the hidden “link” between all of their names. While appearing on The Shade Room last March, Cannon listed his children’s unique names and how they all came to be. “Moroccan and Monroe was real cool ‘cause that’s what Mariah and I came up with and, you know, the Moorish Moroccan vibe was always something we talked about,” he explained. “And then Monroe, Mariah loves Marilyn Monroe. And then we call them Roc and Roe, sounds like Rock n’ Roll, so that was always cool.”
For his three children with Bell, Cannon said: “There was Golden, who really is like the golden child. Kid is a genius. And then, his sister is Powerful, Powerful Queen. So their names kind of go together.” As for their third child, Rise Messiah, Cannon said that his son’s name “goes together” with the names of his older siblings.
Since De La Rosa’s name begins with an A, Cannon explained how “she wanted to have children with Z names”. While she opted for Zion and Zillion for her and Cannon’s first two children, she didn’t choose a Z name for their third child. “We were gonna go with Zeppelin for our daughter, ‘cause it was gonna be all three [Z names], but I was like, ‘She’s so beautiful. That’s her name.’ It was like, Beautiful Zeppelin,” he said.
Cannon then praised his bond with Tiesi and how the name of their child, Legendary Love, was inspired by their relationship. “Bre, the way we are, we are kind of on the same page,” he said. “What we doing is legendary. We got legendary loving. Yea, we call him LL.”
Meanwhile, Cole already had a name picked out for her daughter, Onyx Ice. “With LaNisha, who is a strong Black woman and loves her chocolate-ness and all that, she had the name Onyx, And was like, ‘I’m with it, let’s get it!’” he said. “And then I threw on the ‘ice cold’, because her name was cold.”
